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| President Biden and the first lady, Dr. Jill Biden, gave a red-carpet welcome to Prime Minister Fumio Kishida of Japan at the White House. Haiyun Jiang for The New York Times |
The U.S. and Japan bolstered ties
During a pomp-filled ceremony at the White House, President Biden and Prime Minister Fumio Kishida of Japan said their countries would enhance their cooperation as part of international efforts to counter China’s aggression.
Biden said that the U.S. and Japan would create an expanded defense architecture with Australia, participate in three-way military exercises with Britain and explore ways for Japan to join a U.S.-led coalition with those two countries.
Economic and climate initiatives also figured prominently on the agenda. Biden also announced that a Japanese astronaut would go to the moon as part of NASA’s Artemis program, which would be the first time a non-American had stepped on the lunar surface. (A later statement clarified that two Japanese astronauts could join the program.)
The day ended with an elaborate state dinner, an honor reserved for only the closest U.S. allies. It featured a performance by Paul Simon and a guest list that included Bill and Hillary Clinton and the Olympian figure skater Kristi Yamaguchi.
Subtext: The visit came amid hand-wringing in Washington and Tokyo about the possibility of a return to power by Donald Trump, whose unpredictable foreign policy as president kept many world leaders on edge. One goal of the summit, officials said, was to strengthen the relationship with Japan before the election.
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| Casting a ballot in Seoul on Wednesday. The parliamentary election has been seen as a referendum on President Yoon Suk Yeol. Ahn Young-Joon/Associated Press |
South Korean leader’s party crushed in parliamentary elections
Voters handed President Yoon Suk Yeol and his party a bruising defeat in parliamentary elections, giving the opposition one of its biggest electoral victories in recent decades. Now, Yoon is facing the possibility of becoming a lame duck for the remainder of his single five-year term.
It appeared that the opposition Democratic Party, along with a party allied to it, would win far more than half of the 300 seats in the National Assembly. The Democratic Party’s candidate for president, Lee Jae-myung, narrowly lost to Yoon in 2022. Yoon’s People Power Party and its satellite party were expected to win more than 100 seats, according to The Associated Press. Final official results are expected later today.
Prime Minister Han Duck-soo and all of Yoon’s senior advisers, except those in charge of security issues, have offered to resign, The A.P. reported. Yoon’s office did not immediately say whether the resignations had been accepted.
Missteps by Yoon and opposition control of Parliament have stalled his business-friendly domestic agenda, and his goals will remain imperiled by the lopsided election results. In contrast, Lee, who hopes to run for president again in 2027, is likely to get a big push from the election.
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| The car in which three sons of the Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh were reportedly killed during an Israeli strike west of Gaza City yesterday. Agence France-Presse — Getty Images |
An Israeli strike killed a Hamas leader’s sons
An Israeli airstrike killed three sons of Ismail Haniyeh, one of Hamas’s most senior leaders, in the Gaza Strip yesterday.
Israeli ground troops have largely pulled out of Gaza, but Israel still conducts airstrikes across the territory. The Israeli military confirmed the deaths, noting that the three sons were Hamas military operatives.
“The enemy is delusional if it thinks that by killing my children, we will change our positions,” said Haniyeh, who leads Hamas’s political bureau from exile and has been engaged cease-fire negotiations that have stalled, in a statement.Continue reading the main story
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| Geert Vanden Wijngaert/Associated Press |
| Europe: A landmark bill set to overhaul migration policy across the E.U. was approved by the European Parliament.Ukraine: The top U.S. military commander in Europe warned that Ukraine could lose the war with Russia without ammunition from the U.S. |
| Italy: An explosion killed at least three people near Bologna at a hydroelectric plant that was testing efficiency improvements. Prosecutors said they would investigate the cause. |
| Floods: More than 100,000 people were forced to evacuate after devastating floods engulfed cities and villages across vast sections of Russia and Kazakhstan.South Africa: Jacob Zuma, who in 2018 resigned from the presidency in shame, is running as an opposition candidate in parliamentary elections next month.Canada: Prime Minister Justin Trudeau testified at a foreign interference hearing, pushing back against intelligence reports indicating that his party may have benefited from Chinese efforts to sway Canada’s elections. |
Zoom In
| China: Its leader, Xi Jinping, met with Ma Ying-jeou, a former president of Taiwan, to demonstrate Beijing’s openness to more sympathetic politicians from Taiwan.It’s personal: Ecuador’s raid on Mexico’s embassy in Quito is a flagrant example of how the personal aims of leaders, as opposed to national interest, are driving foreign policy in much of Latin America, analysts said. |
Climate
| Heat: The ocean has been breaking temperature records every day for more than a year.Coal: Global capacity to generate power from coal grew in 2023, driven by a wave of new plants coming online in China. |
| MORNING READ |
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| Alyssa Pointer for The New York Times |
Wanted: Someone who can write a short piece of fiction about a green dancing octopus, set in Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX offices on Nov. 8, 2022.
That’s one essay question on a test for people applying to work as artificial-intelligence tutors — that is, contractors paid to train A.I. models. As A.I. technology has become more sophisticated, so have the jobs of those who must painstakingly teach the systems, meaning that yesterday’s photo tagger is today’s essay writer.
| CONVERSATION STARTERS |
| Taiwan: An earthquake rescue dog has won hearts for helping to find the body of a victim. (The dog was too friendly for drug-sniffing.)Framing himself: A museum in Munich said it had fired a worker for hanging one of his own pieces in its collection.Copyright: Italy and the German puzzle maker Ravensburger are fighting over who has the right to reproduce, and profit from, Leonardo da Vinci’s “Vitruvian Man.” |
Continue reading the main story
| SPORTS NEWS |
Restoring their dominance: Humble Bayern Munich showed hunger and energy.
A slow and insidious demise: The fall of the House of Ajax.
Masters 2024 Big Board: How Tiger Woods, Scottie Scheffler and everyone else stack up.
| ARTS AND IDEAS |
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| Dmitry Kostyukov for The New York Times |
Is free the right price for a soccer game?
Last November, Paris F.C. became home to an unlikely revolution by announcing that it was mostly doing away with ticket prices for the rest of the season. The experiment raised the question of whether fans ought to pay to see a game, or — in an era when soccer, like all sports, is a television business — whether observers in a stadium are part of the production.
The move amounted to a marketing strategy, since the tickets cost only about $6, and Paris F.C. has long trailed Paris St.-Germain as the City of Light’s favorite team. Months later, most metrics suggest the gambit has worked.
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| David Malosh for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Simon Andrews. |
Cook: Indian butter chickpeas are a vegetarian riff on the classic chicken dish.
